Player Profile: Kate DominguezApril 21st, 2017, 1:50 am

How long have you been playing?: My first event was August 2016. I discovered the Kingdoms of Novitas community through my friend Dave C. who had been attending KoN events for years.

 

Describe your character: I play Ellenor Vold, a young human woman who struggles with handling grief, understanding faith, and fighting self-doubt. She makes commitments quickly and then is forced to deal with the consequences.

Her goal is to grow stronger and to not be seen as weak or vulnerable. After the death of her close friend and potential love-interest Richard the bard, she joined the Running Rhinos -a mercenary fighting gang- becoming their first female member. She looks up to Fe da Butcher, the leader of the Rhinos, as a fighting coach and mentor. As Ellenor has said, "The Rhinos leap before they look. So they usually make stupid decisions. I guess that means I'm a perfect fit with them."

 

What was your favorite in game moment?: It's difficult to choose just one! Swearing the Running Rhino’s loyalty oath and becoming a full member of the group was a recent highlight. After I repeated the words of the oath, all the members of the Rhinos clapped and cheered and stomped on the floor of our cabin. There was such a strong sense of togetherness and brotherhood. I normally feel that exuberant joy about this wonderful community out of game; it was cool to feel the same way in character.

Butcher sets the tone and makes the Rhinos a great crew to be a part of. We’re always over-confidently charging forward and getting in way over our heads. It makes for great drama! I can see why the Rhinos won the Best PC Roleplaying Award this year. We’ll show Thaerion and her elves one of these days!

Why do you love Kingdoms of Novitas?: This community is fantastic. Friendly, welcoming, accepting, thoughtful, well-organized, well-run, funny, nerdy… As a friend said, “Every nerdy reference I made, someone there got it.” I walked away after my first event thinking, “I’ve found my people.” At Novitas, I have made some incredible friends.

I love that the people here care about great story-telling. Thought is put into every detail- from foreshadowing and plotting of giant battles to the motivations of a single non-player character in the inn. I am still talking about plots from Novitas months later. I have laughed out loud over and over reading (and rereading) in-character blog posts written by other players as I count down the days to the next event. Even at my first event, other players made an effort to include my player character in their adventures and gave me room to add to their plots.

I've now been writing Ellenor stories regularly on the KoN player blog since August 2016. I was honored to receive the 2016 End of Season – Best Blog Award. I love capturing characters and scenes in words (and joining in the hilarious discussions that happen in the blog comments). It’s a joy to reread the stories and remember the fun of that event! Plotting and writing crossover stories with other players is such a delight, it sustains my excitement for KoN all month!

For April Fool's Day this year, several other players and I wrote "behind the scenes" stories. I rewrote the story of a tense argument that happened in game between Ellenor and Rykir from Kate-the-player’s perspective- which showed that out of character I was trying not to laugh several times in this “serious” scene. I’m a better writer than actress, but with help from the other players I’m learning!

Who is your favorite PC?: I have several. My favorite is a tie between Daitoro and Rykir.

I thought because I knew the person who plays Daitoro out of game, our characters would easily be friends in game, but his character is terrifying! When I first met him in character, I tried to act friendly, but Daitoro just glared at me from behind his mask and called me nosy. I've now incorporated nosiness as a character trait for Ellenor because of that moment. Dave C. puts great thought into his character's story and actions and he has a wonderful memory, which helps me write blogs after the events!

Rykir is a member of the Wardens; they try to lift the fallen and help those who can’t help themselves. He cares about people and tries to make the best moral choices possible in a complicated world. I admire that in and out of character. Rykir quickly became like an older brother to Ellenor, an authority figure and a moral "North Star". Sometimes she fights with him and sometimes she appreciates his advice. He helped her to not die after she made an extremely poor decision a few months ago, so now she feels that she owes him a life debt. Reading the letter Rykir wrote to Ellenor after his mentor (Oscar, the founder of the Wardens) died was one of my favorite in-game moments to date.

 

What did you think your character concept was? What is it now?: I created my player character, Ellenor Vold, on my first ever event weekend, and I didn't have any backstory written for her in advance, so she started out very much like me. She was friendly and chatty and outgoing, a new person in a new town, still trying to figure everything out. I later wrote that she had left home to get away from the persistent smothering atmosphere of grief that’s lasted for years since her younger brother drowned.

She’s been through some growing pains since then! After her potential love-interest Richard the bard died in a mysterious Temple fire in Pinedale, Ellenor went through a period of depression and anger and joined the Running Rhinos. Now she cares deeply about a few friends but can be brutally callous to people she doesn't know. She's been wearing a facade of cruelty and cynicism to cover up her fears, but the longer she fakes it, the more it will stick. The hardest part for me as an actress is trying not to smile!

 

How many PCs have you had? What happened to them?: Ellenor is my first and only Player Character so far. A lot has happened to her! I've written over 100 blog posts of scenes from her life. I cause her to experience so much suffering that my blog has been nicknamed #TeamSadism. I actually have to work hard to make her life difficult because so many player characters try to be nice to her!

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